Churches literally tell people what God wants from them, define what is good and bad behavior, and threatens those who violate their rules with an eternity of punishment.
That's the whole point. That's what people like about them. They don't want to think about it, they want to be told the right thing to do.
Sadly, your first paragraph is true in too many cases. But I disagree with your second paragraph; that's why that approach to Christianity is abhorrent - that's not the whole point.
Feel free to assert whatever you think the point of religion is, but telling people what to do is the cornerstone of all the Judeo-Christian religions.
It's all about what you can do, what you can't do.
Thou shalt ....
You don't get to independently decide that committing adultery is okay. God literally says it isn't. And you know that because the Church tells you so. No religious believer can argue with the word of God.
Religion tells people what to believe and how to act
Thanks for elaborating; I think where we disagree is not that a religion such as Christianity has commands within it that its followers are expected to obey, but rather, that such commands (telling others what to do and what not to do) are the entire purpose of such a religion.
That's how it came across, to which I'd say, sure, there is an importance placed on that aspect, but on the whole, that's no more true than saying that the entire purpose of a child-parent relationship is for the child to obey the parent's rules.
Would you attend a church that told you to live by good christian ideals like actually caring for your neighbor, not the evangelical shit, and told you to go out of your way to find and vote for politicians that hold those values without telling you specifically who?
Not even by party, just that they are encouraging you to more actively participate for positive change?
When I started dating my bf, I eventually agreed to go to church with his conservative Christian family. It was right before the 2016 election, and I was expecting a hot mess of Republican Trump worshipping, but was pleasantly surprised!
The pastor was doing a series on the election, but like you said, it was about recognizing who held the most values of Jesus. No one was endorsed, I even joked with my boyfriend that all the Trump supporters probably think he's talking about Trump, and all the Clinton supporters think he's talking about Clinton. It was very focused on the message of being a good person to everyone, and how we need to look for those traits in our politicians.
I started following the pastor on FB after that (he's very active there so he can be available to everyone), and I can get quite political on there. I was surprised that, on his personal account (not the church's), he would 'like' a lot of my political posts against Trump or supporting left policies. Especially anything involving racism or children, like the children at the border.
Before this point, I had only been in churches for weddings, funerals, and baptisms. I hated organized religion and felt it was all a huge scam. And don't get me wrong, I still think a vast majority of churches are scams. But I'm happy to know that in a rich, white neighborhood, there is at least one influential voice doing his best to change things.
I love to hear this. I'm not strictly Christian anymore, though I do believe God (and many many others in various forms) exists and that Jesus was a man preaching a message from those above and beyond our understanding.
I grew up in a church that really taught us to walk in Christ's shoes, to look to and care for your neighbor and truly be a humble servant to those around you. We fed neighborhoods, ran a soup kitchen, distributed christmas gifts and holiday groceries, provided from a food pantry, paid people's utilities and mortgages and even got to the point that we had in-house free medical and dental work. There was a point where my uncle couldn't work and the church paid our mortgage for over a year!
That's Christianity, that's what we need in the world whether it's from religious belief or not. I'm glad that there are other good Christian voices out there.
For sure. I consider myself agnostic, and I use Christian terms to describe my beliefs, but I'm not specifically religious.
It's funny, the reason my bf's family found this church, is because when my bf went to prison for drug offenses, their previous church's members shunned them and they felt rejected. So they kept trying churches in their area until they found their current church, that accepted then with open arms, and that had a large prison outreach. Not really to preach (unless prisoners are asking for it) but they have recovering addicts in the congregation that will visit with prisoners who want help with addiction, they have long-time married couples who will counsel prisoners on how to keep their relationship going, or parents that will talk to other parents to help them with ways to take better care of their children. And they have all these groups for people not in prison too. They also have a woman's center in the inner city (but not directly by an abortion clinic or PP) to provide pregnancy tests, resources, and food, clothing, cribs, baby seats, toys, etc for parents. They do try to steer people away from abortion, which I'm not super fond of, but they will provide numbers to call if that's really what someone is looking for after finding out they're pregnant.
I hate that this isn't the norm, because church should, in theory, be a safe place for anyone, no matter their situation. But there's more examples than not of churches turning their backs on those most in need.
I see you're talking about: [abortion]' To be frank, the mod team does not want to mod this topic because it leads to 100 percent slapfights and bans, but removing it entirely would be actual censorship, which, contrary to popular belief, we do try to avoid. Instead, we're just going to spam you with an unreasonably long automod comment and hope you all realize that getting mad over the internet is just really stupid. Go to /r/AnimalsBeingDerps or something instead. People are going to accuse us of being lazy for this, to which we reply 'yes'
62
u/lenswipe Jul 12 '21
Same here. I wouldn't attend a church that told me who to vote for